Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/205

Rh forces than are others, and where the granite is soft it gives way, presenting a laminated appearance. Moreover, the granite is full of joints. Where these joints are vertical and numerous, there the rocky masses break into fragments. Believer Tor is a good instance. This imposing mass looks as though, when rising out of the Flood, it had shaken itself, like a poodle, to dry itself, and in so doing had shaken itself to bits. Lustleigh Cleave is another instance. Every tor is surrounded by a "clitter" (Welsh clechir), and these clitters are due to the disintegration of the granite in horizontal beds, and then on account of their joints horizontal and diagonal, falling into confused heaps. Where the joints are not numerous and not close together, there the rocks cohere and form tors. In many, as Vixen Tor and Mis Tor, the pseudo-bedding lines are very distinct. Where the soft beds are infrequent, there the granite forms great cake-like blocks as in Hey Tor. The tors are, in fact, the more solid cores as yet not overthrown by natural agencies. Such a core is Bowerman's Nose, and around it is the "clitter" of rock that once encased it.

Granite is very pervious to water, as everyone knows who lives in a house built of it by modern architect and masons.

The ancients were not such fools as we take them to have been. They did condescend to consider the capabilities and the disadvantages of their building material before employing it. The "old men," when they constructed a wall of granite, always gave it two faces, and filled in with rubble between. By this